Who? What? Where? When? Why?

I'm sorry, but just like the Sylvester Stallone Film Festival, I got off to a rocky start.  Missing two of the first five days makes it difficult to establish any continuity or routine, so the blog, among other things, suffered.

But no more!

Henceforth, you can turn to the blog nightly and find recaps, updates, links, messages, info for absent students and much more.  Welcome!

Today we did it.  We actually started the new curriculum I've been mentioning since day one.  Our first several writing pieces will have you developing your investigative journalism skills.  You'll be finding stories, writing them up, cutting out the fat and composing lean, efficient, incisive pieces that fit word counts and meet deadlines.

While we didn't have a chance to write today since we shared the 140's and discussed the hajib article we did manage to dive into the first part of the writing unit.  For starters we talked about the Five W's: who, what, where, when and why.  I shared with you the opening of my story

Last weekend in Hildebrandt Hall at Purdue University there was a tense moment when two new roommates got off on the wrong foot over a misappropriated bed loft.

and had you identify the Five W's in it. You handled it well.

Your task tonight will be to write me one sentence in your writer's notebook.  This sentence has to answer the 5 W's.  It is going to be a longer sentence but it needs to be grammatically correct and fluid.  Find an event/happening that could be newsworthy.  share the 5 W's in the well-written sentence.  It would be great to see you try the sentence in a couple different ways.  See which one you like best.  Keep them all.  Remember, save everything.  If you have a couple of events to choose between, write a 5 W's sentence for both.  Either way, come to class tomorrow with the sentence.

You are all going to be investigative journalists.  Can't wait to see where you go.

Until next time...